Thursday, May 19, 2011

Pale Male of Fifth Ave., Rose and Vince at Fordham, Violet and Pip at NYU

Photo courtesy of palemale.comDon't let that fluffy little head and those big round eyes fool you. Pale Male is surveying his kingdom and nobody with wings stands a chance if they invade his airspace.Photo by Richard Fleisher All rights reservedThe Fordham nest of Rose, in photo, and Vince.

And update from Rich Fleisher, one of the chief watchers of the Fordham Red-tailed Hawk Nest. No white fuzzy heads yet but Rich, a seasoned hawk watcher, has reason to believe there is a hatch.

Donna, I wanted to update you on the Fordham nest. Keep in mind that what follows is speculative since the nest is on the ledge of one of the buildings and we have no view into the nest. My strong suspicion is that we have chicks (at least two possibly three). I base this conclusion from watching Rose. First, she is sitting high along the edge of the nest where a few weeks ago she was barely visible sitting much lower in the nest. Second, she can be seen clearly shredding food and lowering her head as if to feed. Given the different directions she faces is why I assume that we have multiple eyasses. I have taken recent pictures and as soon as I get a chance to process them I will send some along as well as positing on my Flickr site. I will keep you updated. If I am write we should see some signs of the eyasses sometime in the next week or so. Rich Richard Fleisher Professor

And an update on the next mystery question that is asked after feeding behavior is observed. Just how many eyasses are up there? The Fordham nest is the only nest in which we have observed a hatch of four eyasses in the city. Though the fourth eyass appeared to have died almost immediately after hatching.

This nest is also special in that it is the only nest in which fledglings regularly go back and forth from the nest, to the trees, to other buildings and then back to the nest. Sometimes several times a day. This behavior is far more similar to fledglings that come from rural nests than to the rest of the urban nests perched on buildings, where most often, once off the nest the fledglings ordinarily do not return to their hatching site as it is too difficult to get there with their rudimentary flight abilities.

More from Rich--

Donna,

Follow-up to my email of the other day updating the status of the Fordham nest. Still no little white heads but I continue to be convinced of multiple hatchings. I have gotten around to finally positing onto my flickr site photos and videos that I shot this week. In the video that has both Rose and Vince it is interesting to explicitly compare how much bigger she is. Note that in the video Rose is on the left and further back and yet strikes me as a much larger bird.

Rich,Just looked at the videos. Very nice! I'm thinking you may well have a multiple hatch also. In 3254, is Rose mantling to shade an eyass or has she spread her wings to cool herself? Or do you know? :-) It appears to me that Vince is giving the bowl on his side of the nest, the I'm-watching-one-of-my-offspring looks. And if Rose is mantling somebody on the other side that obviously a multiple. But perhaps she's just hot. You're right. Rose is a big girl isn't she? I never noticed this disparity in size with Hawkeye. Perhaps Vince is in the tiercel mode of Pale Male, Pale Male Jr and Tristan--Small, blindingly fast, and very clever.

And on to Violet and wee Pip at the Washington Square nest located on a window ledge of the NYU Library.Photo captures made with thanks to Livestream Pip rustles around under Violet who very shakily attempts to go over on her side. Her damaged leg must be the one that is currently propping her up so Pip has more room to move. Then like all good Red-tailed Hawk Mom's she checks the perimeter just in case there might be a marauder out there. First she looks towards Washington square.Then at the window. Pip wriggles some more. Violet once again shakily readjusts her body.And as all birds do, even young ones, Pip peeks an eye open to look around before going limply back to sleep for a short amount of time before the next look.

It sounds like the people that the DEC sent in were not anywhere near as experienced as Horvath in rehabilitating hawks. It is such a shame that NYU did not allow Horvath to capture Violet so he could remove the identification tag and put her back in the nest with her baby. I worry about what is going to happen to her.

our wildlife is precious

nyc

May 17th, 2011

3:51 pm

Violet can barely put any weight on her right/ damaged/ badly swollen foot. She clearly cannot hunt.What's going to happen after this eyass fledges in 6 weeks or so, assuming her foot/leg have not deteriorated [further] and Violet has lived that long? What is her life going to be like, especially if she can't hunt for herself?Once the eyass fledges, Violet will spend almost no time on the nest. How will it be possible to capture her and remove the band then, if she survives the next 6 weeks?Shame on DEC. Violet deserves better!

I fear that if Violet cannot hunt that she will starve. Not a good death.

But if she cannot hunt and remains in Washington Square, there is a good chance Bobby Horvath would be able to trap her, take her in, take the band off, feed her up, make sure she can hunt again, and then release her. All could turn out okay at long last. Never underestimate a Red-tail, particularly one that has a little help from her friends.